[78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording

[David Lennick]

Non-electrical lathes were probably in use longer than you'd expect. English 
Columbia preferred them right through the 40s, I believe, probably because of 
unreliable power. I've heard that Decca's field recordings couldn't run longer 
than 3 minutes because that was the limit on their portable units.

dl

Ron L'Herault wrote:
> I imagine some of the acoustical components could have been adapted to the
> electrical process.  If they had an electrically powered cutting lathe, all
> one would need to do would be to put on the electrical cutting head in place
> of the acoustic one, right?
> 
> Ron L
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
> [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Matthew Duncan
> Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 1:57 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording
> 
> Many of the larger companies got going with electrical recording really
> quickly in the first half of 1925 like Victor in the USA and HMV in the UK,
> for example. They re-recorded various works, especially classical, with
> electrical equipment and usually the acoustic equivalent records were
> removed from the catalogue soon after although shops would have still
> stocked the earlier discs in many cases.
> 
> Several of the cheaper labels (especially in the UK) continued to issue
> acoustic items.  One good example of this is IMPERIAL.  Owned by Vocalion
> and later Crystallate they issued a lot of european classical music and US
> jazz and dance band items that were recorded electrically but many of their
> own recordings were acoustic into late 1927/early 1928 as far as I am aware.
> 
> I don't know about what happened to the equipment ...maybe some of it ended
> up in schools, sold off for spare parts or in music stores that made
> personal records??
> 
> I am not sure about the last acoustic records but I am sure someone on here
> could shed more light on this as well as more info on US labels and studios
> as although I collect US records from pre WWII, my knowledge of matrix
> series, studios, adverts etc and technical stuff is mainly British based.
> 
> Matthew Duncan
> England.
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: "fnarf at comcast.net" <fnarf at comcast.net>
> To: 78-L <78-L at klickitat.78online.com>
> Sent: Fri, 22 January, 2010 18:34:36
> Subject: [78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording
> 
> I have a dumb question that's been bugging me for a while now. Everyone
> knows that electrical recording arrived in 1925. How sudden was the change?
> Did everybody change at once? Did some labels continue to record
> acoustically for some time afterwards? What happened to all the acoustical
> gear -- did they just throw it out, or did they pass it on to some other
> use, perhaps a cheaper auxiliary studio, or a budget label or something?
> What's the last known acoustical recording?
> 
>